Ectothermic Christmas
by Night Monkey
Summary: Madame Vastra and Jenny need a real Christmas miracle and the Doctor's in the business of delivering them.


Yes, Christmas was four days ago, but I never was very punctual. Please excuse the belated delivery and enjoy another holiday-themed fanfiction. I hope you aren't sick to death of them yet.

For anyone reading this who also reads my fic _Angels in the __Garden_, the next chapter of that will be coming soon.

And since it's a bit too late to wish anyone a merry Christmas or happy Hanukkah, I'll just skip straight ahead and wish you all a pleasant New Year full of fezzes and love.

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><p>This was not the way Jenny expected to spend Christmas Eve. It was not, she reflected, the way <em>anyone<em> expected to spend Christmas Eve. There was not a person alive whose planned Yule festivities involved huddling in front of a meager, flickering fire, shivering beneath a rotting blanket, and trying to ignore the growing drifts of snow that threatened to swallow the floor of the derelict cabin.

Jenny threw another branch into the fireplace and watched the momentary dance of sparks. She couldn't remember a winter this bitter. An unseasonable cold had settled over London in October and had lingered like a bad odor. Eventually the unseasonable had become seasonable as the calendar rolled through November and into December. As December progressed, the cold grew sharper, stabbing at exposed fingers and noses. Tonight, a night that should have been spent in front of a roaring fire, was perhaps the coldest night of an unbroken streak.

Jenny inched closer to the fire and pulled the blanket tighter around her. The blanket smelled like dust and age, like a moth-eaten relic from an attic. It, incidentally, also looked like a moth-eaten relic and was just as frayed and riddled with holes. It would probably have provided more warmth if Jenny had tossed it into the flames.

Instead of torching the blanket, Jenny chose another stick from her dwindling supply of firewood. Madame Vastra had warned her to be conservative with the firewood, to use it sparingly, and she wasn't doing a very good job of obeying orders. Jenny paused for a moment with the wood held between her numb fingers. The wind gusted outside. Jenny tossed the branch into the fire.

Madame Vastra was not going to be happy if she returned to find her maid, friend, lover, and fellow warrior frozen to death. Jenny supposed her blue, icy corpse would make a very poor Christmas gift. It would be impossible for Madame Vastra to embrace the human holiday if all she could associate with it was Jenny's unfortunate demise.

It simply could not be allowed to pass. Madame Vastra had agreed to celebrate Christmas—it was actually her first genuine attempt to celebrate any human holiday—and the festivity could not be ruined by tragedy. Jenny swore not to waste any more firewood. She would stay alive, frostbite would not claim her extremities, and once Madame Vastra hunted down and killed the horrible winged ghoul she and Jenny had spent the last three days pursuing, they would return to London and celebrate properly.

Two hours later, the fire was dying red embers and Jenny was shivering so violently it almost felt like she was suffering a seizure. Her fingers had lost all sensation and the numbness was spreading up her extremities. Jenny clapped her hands together in a futile attempt to restore warmth and blood flow. When that didn't work she brought them up in front of her face and exhaled on them. The fleeting heat of her breath dissipated within seconds and left her hands deader than before.

As though mocking the weakness of Jenny's breath, a gust of arctic wind rattled the cabin, exploiting chinks in the walls and holes in the roof. The wind swept the last of the embers into extinction. It tugged at the frayed blanket Jenny had wrapped around her shoulders. Like a pervert it slid its fingers beneath her coat and shirt, slinking against her skin.

Jenny drew herself into a ball. The storm outside—though the cabin was so dilapidated and riddled with holes in both the walls and roof that there was almost no distinction from outside and inside—was getting worse. In the morning, they'd find many of the destitute of London buried beneath snowdrifts, frozen into grotesque statuary. And as for her? Would anyone find her? Madame Vastra would, always assuming she was still alive. The chances of that, Jenny realized with horror that froze her deeper than the wind ever could, were slim. If Madame Vastra wasn't back yet, that monster she'd gone after alone, despite Jenny's pleas and protests, had most likely killed her. There was nothing except death or debilitation—which in the blizzard was synonymous with death—that would keep Madame Vastra from returning.

If not for the fear her tears would freeze, Jenny would have broken down and cried. Madame Vastra had taken her in, given her a home, and made a woman out of her. She'd been the only real friend Jenny had ever had, and now she was probably ripped to pieces out in the forest by a monster with a name Jenny couldn't even remember. Even in the nasty, brutish world Jenny was well familiarized with, that amount of cruelty seemed to be too much.

The wind howled again and the roof creaked ominously. The cabin had no doubt stood for decades, providing shelter for hunters, but it would not survive this winter. It wouldn't, Jenny reckoned, even survive the night. Another furious wind gust and the whole structure might collapse on top of her.

And there was nothing to be done about it. Even if her leg hadn't been broken by a single, well-placed blow delivered by the monster's crocodilian tail, Jenny had no place to go. If she ventured outside she would freeze long before she found any kind of shelter. Rendered lame as she was, she'd be forced to crawl through the deepening snow and wouldn't make it more than twenty feet before the temperature and wind sapped her strength.

Speaking of the wind, it again howled through the trees and through the eaves. There was, however, a noise beneath the wind. A deeper noise, steadier, almost like…like breathing. Like a great pair of lungs inhaling and exhaling. And it was familiar. For a moment Jenny couldn't place it, but then she found the memory and could hardly believe she'd forgotten it at all.

It was Madame Vastra's old friend, the Doctor! The noise was his machine. His magical blue box that transported people from dreary London to the far future where people lived among the stars and fought with blazing weapons.

Judging by the sound of it, the box had landed right outside the door. A moment after the machine's whooshing stopped, Jenny heard the cabin door open. She rolled away from the empty fireplace and found the Doctor standing in the doorway. He was the most magnificent thing she'd ever laid eyes on.

Jenny struggled to get to her feet. Her broken leg, even numbed by the cold as it was, flared with white-hot pain. Jenny stumbled and would have collapsed if the Doctor hadn't been there to catch her.

Before Jenny could protest, the Doctor swept her off her feet and carried her bridal-style. He did not look like a particularly strong man, but he seemed to heft her without difficulty. Jenny clung to him and he carried her the short distance between the cabin and the TARDIS.

The Doctor celebrated Christmas, Jenny realized with wonder, for his magic box was decorated like the most beautiful winter wonderland Jenny could imagine. Colorful electric lights hung around the room, the central console was wrapped in red and gold garland, and a tree unlike any Jenny had ever seen before was decorated with an array of baubles. A miniaturized train ran on a track laid beneath the tree.

Among the cheery decorations, Madame Vastra's unmoving body was rather out of place. She was lying near the tree, a blanket hiding her from the neck down. Jenny forgot all about the festive atmosphere and began to struggle in the Doctor's arms.

"Madame Vastra!" Jenny cried.

"She's fine! Alright, not completely fine, but she's alive and she'll be fine. She's sort of hibernating right now," the Doctor replied.

The Doctor gently set Jenny down next to Madame Vastra. Jenny reached for Madame Vastra's exposed face and rested a hand on her cheek. Her fingers were frozen stiff and insensible, unable to report any information back to her brain. Jenny, if she hadn't been looking, wouldn't have been able to tell if she was touching a Silurian warrior or a wheel of cheese.

"Oh that's very bad," the Doctor said, tentatively touching Jenny's hand. "That's very, very not good."

"What's the matter?"

"Can you feel this? No, don't look, just tell me if you can feel it."

Jenny shook her head. Nothing.

"And what about this?"

"No."

The Doctor reached into his pocket and brought something out, cupping it in his hand to keep it out of sight.

"No peeking," he said.

Jenny turned her head and waited. After a few seconds she felt a sharp jab in the wrist. She pulled her hand back and glared at the Doctor.

"You felt nothing until just then?" the Doctor asked.

"What did you do?" Jenny asked, noting a tiny drop of blood.

The Doctor held open his hand and revealed a pin. "I poked each of your fingers and your palm. You've got frostbite and if I don't do something about it soon, you'll have to learn to swordfight with your elbow. Let's get you to the medical bay."

"But I can't leave—"

"Madame Vastra has to warm up. You've got hyperthermia. As healing as hugs usually are, your super-cold-Mister-Freeze hugs can't help her. The electric blanket can. Now let's go before your fingers start dropping off. That can happen. I've seen it."

The Doctor scooped Jenny up again and carried her down the stairs as though she weighed no more than a child. For a woman who had become quite capable with a sword, it was more than a little embarrassing.

"I'm going to put on my Sherlock Holmes hat—not literally, I lost that hat and I miss it—and deduce that the thing that broke your leg is the same thing that Vastra diced into very ugly chop suey."

"Doctor, who's Sherlock Holmes and why would you want his hat?" Jenny asked.

"Haven't you read about him yet? The first story's been published nearly two years now! What's Vastra got you reading?"

"Dickens."

"I met him. He was going to write a book about me. Time didn't permit, unfortunately. I'm sure it would have been wonderful. But Sherlock, he's clever and I love clever. But enough about literature. Am I right? I hope I am. I love being right as much as I love clever."

"Unless Madame Vastra found another monster, yes, they were the same creature."

"Pterodile," the Doctor said.

"What?"

"Pterodile, not monster. They're nasty beasties, lots of sharp teeth—and they don't smell very nice, either—but they're still just animals."

"It didn't hurt Madame Vastra, did it, your pterodile?"

"Scratched her a bit, but the real damage was to her coat. For a mammal, that wouldn't have been such a problem, but Silurians are cold-blooded. Without her coat, she lost her body heat in minutes. She shut down, went into hibernation mode. That's nothing to worry about—if Silurians are good at anything, it's hibernating—and she'll wake up once she's warm enough."

The Doctor and his passenger arrived at the medical bay. He sat Jenny on the edge of a bed and wrapped the bed's heavy blanket around her shoulders before disappearing deeper into the room. Jenny heard a series of buzzes, a strange whirring, a crash followed by a terrified squeak, and a ding like a bell. She craned her neck, trying to see what the Doctor was doing, but only caught a momentary glimpse of his tweed jacket before he disappeared again.

Five minutes later the Doctor returned. With all the dexterity of a lifelong butler, he balanced a laden tray in one hand and carried a strange device unlike anything Jenny had ever seen before in the other hand.

The Doctor set the tray next to Jenny and placed the strange machine on the floor. Jenny stared at it and tried to guess what its purpose might be. She stretched her imagination but couldn't think of one thing the machine might plausibly do.

"First things first, boots off," the Doctor said.

Jenny's frozen fingers fumbled with the laces. The Doctor intervened and had the boots off in no time. Jenny's toes were a bit better off than her fingers and retained some sensation thanks to her thick wool socks. The Doctor nodded and reached for the mysterious machine.

"What is that thing?" Jenny asked.

"This? Twenty-third century all-purpose portable medical scanner. It's a hospital in a box, basically. MRI, x-ray, electrocardiogram, ultrasound, you name it, this does it all. Except make tea. It doesn't do that. I had to make the tea myself." The Doctor pointed to the steaming cup on the tray. "You should drink that, by the way. Or have some soup. Or hot chocolate. Or coffee."

Jenny accepted the tea but was reluctant to drink it. The cup made an excellent hand-warmer.

"Drink the tea and hold the soup," the Doctor advised. "The bowl's bigger, anyway."

Jenny drained the teacup and picked up the steaming bowl of tomato soup. The heat diffused into her fingers, waking them up. As the frozen nerves thawed, Jenny's fingers tingled with pins and needles.

The Doctor fiddled with the scanner, pressed a large red button that did nothing, flicked an inconspicuous switch that filled a screen with numbers and green light, and finally turned the whole contraption on its side. That seemed to do the trick, and the machine emitted a short beep.

"Good, yes, finally. Now, x-ray function. Surgical laser, no, limb amputation guide, no, list of the fifty most common ailments of the spleen, come on, you're a worse doctor than I am! No, I'm sorry, don't take that the wrong way." The Doctor patted the machine.

Just before his frustration levels peaked, the Doctor finally found the setting he was looking for. He lifted the scanner and placed it over Jenny's leg. She looked at the humming box uncertainly.

"They haven't discovered x-rays in your time, have they? No, a few years too early. Don't worry, they're not painful or anything. They're a picture of your bones. They're a bit creepy at first—and they don't make very appropriate decorations, or so I'm told—but they're quite useful," the Doctor explained.

The scanner's hum oscillated for a few seconds and then the screen that had formerly been covered in lines of numbers displayed a picture. The Doctor tilted the scanner so Jenny could see the screen, too.

"Simple fracture of the tibia. That shouldn't be too hard to fix. But it does mean no sword-fighting, no kicking arse, and no wrangling aliens, killers, monsters, ghouls, beasties or anything more evil than puppies for the next eight weeks. Think you'll survive?" the Doctor said.

"No," Jenny replied, dejected.

"Come on, it won't be so bad. It'll be eight weeks of Vastra taking care of you, feeling sorry for you, and showing her sensitive side. Doesn't that sound nice?"

"A bit."

"More than a bit?"

"Much more than a bit. But don't tell her I said that!"

"My lips are sealed."

An hour later, with her leg encased in plaster and with crutches that were more-or-less correct for her time period propping her up, Jenny hobbled back to the console room. The Doctor walked abreast, ready to grab her and serve as additional support should she require it. Jenny politely but steadfastly refused any attempts by the Doctor to help her, and under her own power she pulled herself up the stairs.

Before she was even at the top of the stairs, Jenny was looking to see if Madame Vastra had awoken from hibernation. She had, and was sitting up with the blanket bunched around her. Jenny released a sigh of relief. Madame Vastra took one look at Jenny, smiled, and shook her head.

"My poor little mammal," Madame Vastra said.

Jenny released a cry of joy and, completely forgetting about her condition and her cast, crossed the room as quickly as her plaster-wrapped leg would allow. Before Madame Vastra could tell Jenny to slow down, Jenny was kneeling by her side, hugging her.

The Doctor watched the pair and couldn't help but grin. Seeing a human and Silurian not only tolerate but love each other renewed the Doctor's hope for both species. If Jenny and Vastra could live side by side, then humans and Silurians had a chance for peaceful coexistence, as well.

"You still look cold. Come under here." Madame Vastra lifted a corner of the blanket and draped it around Jenny, assimilating her into the cocoon.

A strange look crossed Jenny's face and a moment later her cheeks colored. The Doctor knew exactly why she was blushing.

"Yeah, probably should have mentioned that. When I found Vastra, her clothes were soaked with melted snow. The best thing to do was just take them off. They should be dry and I will, uh, go get them right now," the Doctor said.

"Take your time," Madame Vastra replied and Jenny's face reddened further.

Once the Doctor had vanished into the depths of his TARDIS, Madame Vastra turned to Jenny and motioned upward with her eyes. Jenny followed the Silurian's gaze and noticed a sprig of leaves hanging from the roof above them.

"Mistletoe. It means something to you humans, doesn't it? I can't seem to remember its significance, though. Can you remind me?" Madame Vastra asked.

"It…when you stand under it at Christmastime…you…kiss," Jenny replied.

"Does it still count if you sit under it?"

"I—"

Jenny never got a chance to answer. Madame Vastra decided that yes, it did count, and pounced on Jenny.

"I could learn to like your human holidays," Vastra murmured into Jenny's ear. "I could learn to like them very much."

The End!


End file.
